SPD makes a fool of itself with a failed Yom Kippur greeting: "Zero competence at work"

Created: 10/05/2022 12:16 p.m

By: Florian Dörr

A greeting on Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish holiday, brings heavy criticism to the SPD in Hesse.

The party explains that something "underground stupid" happened.

Wiesbaden – gross faux pas by the SPD in Hesse: On Tuesday evening (October 4), the state parliamentary group congratulated the Jewish community on Instagram and Facebook on the start of Yom Kippur.

The highest Jewish holiday this year began on the evening of October 4th and ends on Wednesday evening.

But what was intended as a friendly greeting from the Social Democrats quickly brought them a lot of malice on social networks, as reported by fnp.de.

Because: The posts that were shared on the two platforms were stored with a photo of a building that is religiously significant - but not for the Jewish community.

The photo with which the SPD Hessen optically backed their Yom Kippur greeting showed the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

One of the main Islamic shrines.

The importance for Islam is enormous, for this reason the believers used to align themselves not with Mecca but with Jerusalem.

SPD in Hesse apologizes for errors in Yom Kippur contribution

The error in the SPD in Hesse apparently went unnoticed for around twelve hours.

Only then were the posts on Instagram and Facebook deleted.

Too long, of course, to forestall malicious comments: "The picture for this text shows once again that there is zero competence at work here," wrote a user who noticed the faux pas.

Another commented, "One of the most important Jewish holidays, and you illustrate it with the Islamic iconography of the triumph over Judaism." Background: The Dome of the Rock, some scholars say, was once built to commemorate the triumph of Islam over Judaism and Islam show Christianity.

How could the mistake happen?

Christoph Gehring, head of the press office of the SPD parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament and press spokesman for the SPD Hessen, apologized and spoke in detail on Twitter.

Accordingly, the “test and control mechanisms” had failed.

The press office is solely responsible, no member of parliament and no member of the SPD leadership team saw the posts in advance.

"One thing is certain: something incredibly stupid happened to us, for which we are rightly criticized." (Florian Dörr)